The point, though -- is I hate paying for something continually if I can plunk down a one-time payment to have it forever.

Sure, but you can pay a one-time payment for digital download and have it forever too.

It's true that storage of discs is inefficient, but it's not like even a few hundred of them are exactly enormous. I love owning entire runs of TV shows on discs.

I own about 150-200 DVDs, which take up two shelves on my bookshelf. Since I live in a studio apartment, and I can't give up my physical library of books, that space is at a real premium. I'd transfer all of those DVDs to an external hard drive but it's time-intensive and I'm just too lazy to do it.

I definitely understand wanting to own something physical when it comes to books, or special edition DVDs and CDs, but most DVDs come in an unremarkable plastic box.

This seems like a pretty tech savvy bunch, but every so often a development occurs that blows my mind a little bit. Cell phones didn't faze me at all, perhaps because of their appearance in Star Trek when I was a kid, but this kind of capacity on a key chain staggers me a little.

I think I had that moment when I bought my first computer with my own money, and it came with the Encyclopedia Britannica on one CD-ROM. I don't think technology has the same wow factor that it did in the past; we'll never see something as impressive to us as the first moving picture or the first computer or the first transmission of information over the air rather than a cable. That said, it's still pretty amazing stuff.

I used to talk to my stepdad about this before he died, and he said that teleportation would one of those mind-blowing inventions.

I've got somewhere over 8000 books, and though the answer to the first question I always get ("Have you read all of these books?") is obviously "No", I can tell you where each of them came from, and how each of them fit(s) into history at the time it was written.

Dick: I guess it looks as if you're reorganizing your records. What is this though? Chronological?
Rob: No...
Dick: Not alphabetical...
Rob: Nope...
Dick: What?
Rob: Autobiographical.
Dick: No ####### way.

I'm a bit of a pack rat when it comes to books...I've actually cleaned out more than a few professors who were doing an office move. Plus my dad more or less lives at the national clearing house for Canadian Good Will. He's always picking up early edition 19th century histories for me. I also move around way too much to actually have them on hand, but luckily my parents keep my old bedroom in their house full of them. I haven't updated my database of books in a while but last time I checked I think I was near 1000. Similarly, I haven't read all of them by any means, but I can't imagine not having them. (Or since I don't actually have them with me, I can't imagine not owning them, would be more accurate).

One of my favourite projects of the last few years was organizing them by Library of Congress call number. The vast majority of my stuff is in the Ds. My current university uses some kind of system that only uses numbers. I hate it.

If the lefties here don't like Bob Beckel, that's fine — I'm no fan myself — but claiming that a guy who has, for years, appeared several times per week on the highest-rated shows on the highest-rated cable network and also has a column on the op-ed page of USA Today doesn't qualify as a "prominent" political pundit is beyond absurd.

Joe, liberals don't watch Fox "News", except for comic relief or in a carwreck curiosity fashion. Beckel has very little influence on liberal thinking. If he had any real political juice, he wouldn't be on Fox "News". Fox trots him out there as a pinata for their conservative tagteam, like they used to do with Alan Colmes until Colmes realized he couldn't continue that gig and maintain his self respect at the same time, or to be able to point to him to counter criticism they don't present a "balanced" view. Guys like Bob Shrum and Lawrence McDonnell and Steve McMahon and other Dem stalwarts wouldn't be caught dead on Fox "News". To serious people who are interested in critical analysis and truth, Fox "News" is a very bad joke. To say that it's the highest rated news show says nothing about its value or its credibility or its journalistic integrity. People magazine, I'm sure, outsells The New Yorker. Fox "News" gets all the viewers who don't want to learn something, they just to be comforted by having their preconceived prejudiced views "validated".

USA Today is in the same populist bucket, except that it isn't as loopy when it comes to the facts as Fox is. Liberals don't read USA Today either, except at the breakfast table when they're on the road to catch up on the sports scores. If USA Today was a restaurant, it would be Denny's.

I'm a bit of a pack rat when it comes to books...I've actually cleaned out more than a few professors who were doing an office move. Plus my dad more or less lives at the national clearing house for Canadian Good Will. He's always picking up early edition 19th century histories for me. I also move around way too much to actually have them on hand, but luckily my parents keep my old bedroom in their house full of them. I haven't updated my database of books in a while but last time I checked I think I was near 1000. Similarly, I haven't read all of them by any means, but I can't imagine not having them. (Or since I don't actually have them with me, I can't imagine not owning them, would be more accurate).

One of my favourite projects of the last few years was organizing them by Library of Congress call number. The vast majority of my stuff is in the Ds. My current university uses some kind of system that only uses numbers. I hate it.

I'm not quite that organized. (smile) There are about a dozen subjects (photography, baseball, various periods and themes of 20th century history, etc.) that make up my main collections, and those all have dedicated cases, with rough sub-groupings within them. And then there are other subjects like film and music, where I may have fewer than 100 titles and only rate a few shelves of their own. The real problem is that since I'm a lazy ############, the only way to deal with category overflow is to double-shelve the secondary titles and to take the ones I'm most likely to read in the next few months and put them in the cases in the computer room and the bedroom, which are a mix of subjects. If I ever tried to be any more organized than that I'd wind up in a bughouse way earlier than I'd otherwise expect.

Footnote to yesterday's D.C. Circuit Court decision that invalidated presidential recess appointments....

Has anyone seen any notice in any paper, or heard any mention in any broadcast, that the three judge panel that issued this decision was made up entirely of appointees of one of the two Bushes?

Chief Justice David B. Sentelle - appointed by G.H.W. Bush in 1987 and promoted to Chief Justice by G.W. Bush in 2007

Judge Karen Lecraft Henderson - appointed by G.H.W. Bush in 1990

Judge Thomas P. Griffith - appointed by G.W. Bush in 2005---I wonder whether Ralph Nader would have approved of this appointment (/sarcasm)

Given the pedigree of these three judges, it's hardly surprising that they ruled the way they did. But it is surprising, to me at least, that the unanimous nature of their decision hasn't been put into perspective by our media watchdogs. Apologies if it's been brought out elsewhere, but so far I haven't seen or heard any mention of of the fact that not a single Democratic-appointed judge was represented on that three judge panel.

Sentelle is also a tenther hack.

I'm assuming this can be appealed?

Sentelle was "promoted to Chief [Judge]...." Not Chief Justice. That's bad enough.

Yes, there are 2 avenues for review of the decision. One is review by the entire D.C. Circuit (en banc review). However, there are only 8 judges on the D.C. Circuit, so all 5 of the others would have to agree to reverse. That's not likely; it's an extremely conservative group. However, this opinion is so crazy they just might take it up.

The other option for review is to take it straight to the Supreme Court. The decision conflicts with at least 2 other Circuits, so the Court would almost certainly take it. While I'm usually pretty cynical about the Court's conservatives, I could see Roberts and Kennedy voting to reverse.

Sentelle was "promoted to Chief [Judge]...." Not Chief Justice. That's bad enough.

My bad, and it sure as hell is bad enough.

------------------------------------------------

The other option for review is to take it straight to the Supreme Court. The decision conflicts with at least 2 other Circuits, so the Court would almost certainly take it. While I'm usually pretty cynical about the Court's conservatives, I could see Roberts and Kennedy voting to reverse.

Point of information: What other two circuits would those be, and what decisions?

Maybe I'm missing it, but in all this recent talk of priorities and agendas for the second term of the president, where does appointing judges fall? I just don't get the President's rationale for not caring about this.

I'm not quite that organized. (smile) There are about a dozen subjects (photography, baseball, various periods and themes of 20th century history, etc.) that make up my main collections, and those all have dedicated cases, with rough sub-groupings within them. And then there are other subjects like film and music, where I may have fewer than 100 titles and only rate a few shelves of their own. The real problem is that since I'm a lazy ############, the only way to deal with category overflow is to double-shelve the secondary titles and to take the ones I'm most likely to read in the next few months and put them in the cases in the computer room and the bedroom, which are a mix of subjects. If I ever tried to be any more organized than that I'd wind up in a bughouse way earlier than I'd otherwise expect.

I'm in the annoying position of writing an essay about my short and long term career plans once I finish this degree (hopefully in the fall). I'd very dearly love to put "guy who goes around to people's houses and sorts their books for them" as a possible option. Though I'm not sure how much that would pay.

Point of information: What other two circuits would those be, and what decisions?

Actually it's 3 other circuits. The 11th in Franklin v. US (the case of Judge William Pryor); the 2d in US v. Allocco, and the 9th in US v. Woodley. The 11th Circuit opinion is notable because (a) the 11th is very conservative; and (b) Pryor was a Bush appointee and the Bush DOJ argued in favor of the recess appointment.

Greg, you're in a doctoral program, right? Early modern history? Are you on the job market this cycle?

Greg, you're in a doctoral program, right? Early modern history? Are you on the job market this cycle?

Early modern with a twist of gender!

I'm hoping to be done Septemberish and be on the market soon after. Though that may be getting ahead of myself...I have a draft in right now and the time-frame's going to depend quite a bit on how viciously it is ripped apart at my next meeting. I haven't actually started looking yet, though I plan to start soon. So far I have a line on a post-doc position at my current university, but I'll be casting a wide net I imagine.

Sounds like a good plan. I got a tenure track job before I finished, and while I'm certainly not complaining I'm wondering how the hell I'll ever finish now with my full teaching load, advising, committees, etc.

Sounds like a good plan. I got a tenure track job before I finished, and while I'm certainly not complaining I'm wondering how the hell I'll ever finish now with my full teaching load, advising, committees, etc.

On the one hand that sounds great!

On the other, I'm incredibly lazy, and horrible at multi-tasking so I'm probably going to aim as much as possible to finish first.

Are you in the early modern period as well?

I'm in the annoying position of writing an essay about my short and long term career plans once I finish this degree (hopefully in the fall). I'd very dearly love to put "guy who goes around to people's houses and sorts their books for them" as a possible option. Though I'm not sure how much that would pay.

Your problem is that you were born about 30 years too late. Doing that for nearly 30 years is what's given me the leisure time to annoy people here with my comments, but if I were starting out today I'd be better off taking up blacksmithing. Every currently successful book dealer I know began 30 or 40 years ago, back when you could find underpriced gems in nearly every book shop in the world. There are plenty of such finds online today, but when they're underpriced to the point where you can turn them over for resale they're almost always going to be snapped up by someone else before you're even aware of them.

------------------------------------------

Point of information: What other two circuits would those be, and what decisions?

Actually it's 3 other circuits. The 11th in Franklin v. US (the case of Judge William Pryor); the 2d in US v. Allocco, and the 9th in US v. Woodley. The 11th Circuit opinion is notable because (a) the 11th is very conservative; and (b) Pryor was a Bush appointee and the Bush DOJ argued in favor of the recess appointment.

Thanks, that's good to know. I also wonder how any recess-appointed judges are going to feel if the Supreme Court upholds this inane decision, which by its applied logic would void many hundreds of decisions that those judges have made over the years, not to mention their standing to remain in office. I'd like to think that not even this Supreme Court is going to be crazy enough to open that can of worms, but in the meantime it better be a ####### wake-up call.

------------------------------------------

Maybe I'm missing it, but in all this recent talk of priorities and agendas for the second term of the president, where does appointing judges fall? I just don't get the President's rationale for not caring about this.

Obama's partly to blame for not sending up more appointments and pushing for them more openly, but given the willingness of the Republicans to stall and block those appointees by any possible means, I'm not sure how much good that would have done.

I can only hope that the Dems are going to be mobilizing their base to make them realize just how much is at stake here in these court and agency appointments----and BTW in a related point of fact, the last time the Supreme Court consisted of a majority of Democratic-appointed justices was in 1969.

Well, if you're not going to appoint judges when your party holds the majority in the Senate, when are you going to?

Well, if you're not going to appoint judges when your party holds the majority in the Senate, when are you going to?

I'm not disagreeing with that, but take a look at how those court and regulatory agency appointments have fared in the face of Republicans' "Iron Pants" Molotov strategy, and you'll see the larger issue involved.

Early modern with a twist of gender!

I liked this phrase better before I figured out the context.

The other option for review is to take it straight to the Supreme Court. The decision conflicts with at least 2 other Circuits, so the Court would almost certainly take it. While I'm usually pretty cynical about the Court's conservatives, I could see Roberts and Kennedy voting to reverse.

From New Process Steel vs. NLRB:

NEAL KATYAL, DEPUTY SOLICITOR GENERAL: They were named in July of last year. They were voted out of committee in October. One of them had a hold and had to be renominated. That renomination took place. There was a failed quorum — a failed cloture vote in February. And so all three nominations are pending. And I think that underscores the general contentious nature of the appointment process with respect to this set of issues.

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: And the recess appointment power doesn’t work why?

So you'd have to think that Roberts at least would be a vote to reverse the decision.

Greg--yup. Shakespeare. With a dash of late medieval lit.

With a dash of late medieval lit.

What's your opinion of Chretien de Troyes?

I'm not disagreeing with that, but take a look at how those court and regulatory agency appointments have fared in the face of Republicans' "Iron Pants" Molotov strategy, and you'll see the larger issue involved.

Well, it has to be done, and if as president he doesn't think it does, and is not willing to push for his judges, he's abdicated the field. And that's not good. There is no bigger legacy for a president, and no greater institutional effect he can have--as your note that not since 1969 has the Court had a majority of Democratic appointees testifies to.

What's your opinion of Chretien de Troyes?

Medieval mommy porn.

@2600: You bet--I don't know how many of your 8,000 you've read, but it seems to me like I've at least read through every one of books I have (currently around 1,000 on the premises, which doesn't seem like a lot until I move), and I do feel... more in the world for having them handy. I never quite forget that I might be holding real intelligence, careful thought, and occasionally, wisdom. I love the weight of a book. @2606: fwiw, I did hear in one place (don't remember where) that "3 Republican-appointed judges" made the decision, but it was in the nature of an aside, rather than the focus of the piece.

Apropos of nothing, in tax arguments these days, how come no one uses John Rawls' 'veil of ignorance' any more?

I think I had that moment when I bought my first computer with my own money, and it came with the Encyclopedia Britannica on one CD-ROM. I don't think technology has the same wow factor that it did in the past; we'll never see something as impressive to us as the first moving picture or the first computer or the first transmission of information over the air rather than a cable. That said, it's still pretty amazing stuff.

I used to talk to my stepdad about this before he died, and he said that teleportation would one of those mind-blowing inventions.

It would, and 3D printing had something of that effect on me. For some reason I had no idea it was coming, so I was shocked, literally, to learn of it. I've glanced at some of the ideas surrounding teleportation, and it seems there are two methods. One, you actually break the thing down and send its particles to its destination, where you reassemble it, which brings up issues of soul and so forth. Two, you copy the thing, and send the information necessary to build it to a destination, which brings up all the issues cloning does.

3D printing is very much the latter. I'm sure someone, somewhere, is working on 'printing' the first organism.

edit: Hmm. 10 books per foot of shelf space. Typical bookshelf 3 feet wide, 4 shelves high, so 120 books per bookshelf. That sounds about right.

And 2604 nailed it.

Greg--yup. Shakespeare. With a dash of late medieval lit.

Cool! My tenatative project for a post-doc is on gesture and political authority (as gesture seems to be all the rage with the historian set these days). I'm mostly curious how guys like Buckingham and Strafford seemed to piss everyone off just by the way they walked down the street, or sat and listened to a speech against them.

It's probably going to involve looking into the theatre, and how outward actions didn't just reflect the self, but served to construct it as well in the early modern period. Which should be interesting. I come from a pretty traditional political history tradition which deeply mistrusts all this "New Historicism" business, but I'm finding myself wading into it more and more with gender and now material culture.

Apropos of nothing, in tax arguments these days, how come no one uses John Rawls' 'veil of ignorance' any more?

Because when you're talking to a crowd that mocks the entire concept of a social contract, it's like trying to teach sabermetrics to Murray Chass. The resistance factor is just too high for Rawls's point ever to be understood.

Apropos of nothing, in tax arguments these days, how come no one uses John Rawls' 'veil of ignorance' any more?

Probably because, at the current level of government spending, just about no one is paying his or her "fair share" — or, to put it another way, almost everyone is getting a great deal.

No. It's because delusion and dishonesty precludes even an attempt at considering it as theoretical thought experiment. It's too close for comfort to seeing the enemy as us rather than as them . (At this point Kehoskie will "scat" to another tangent.)

Ewwww ... even on ignore, I don't want to see Kehoskie "scat" ...

There's an interesting section on the veil of ignorance in Wikipedia. Maybe someone can help me with the last part:

Examples

An application of the veil of ignorance towards a recognition of the worst-off members of society is captured in Mahatma Gandhi's Talisman, given in 1948.

"I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj [freedom] for the hungry and spiritually starving millions? Then you will find your doubts and your self melt away."

What could Gandhi have meant by that last sentence? How do you find your doubts (after being IN doubt, according to his initial sentence) ...? I'm missing the relationship between finding doubts and the self that then departs.

I think he means that your thoughts become clear and the meaning of your doubts give way to the correct course of action.

I also wonder how any recess-appointed judges are going to feel if the Supreme Court upholds this inane decision, which by its applied logic would void many hundreds of decisions that those judges have made over the years, not to mention their standing to remain in office. I'd like to think that not even this Supreme Court is going to be crazy enough to open that can of worms, but in the meantime it better be a ####### wake-up call.

What makes this case different from the recess nominated judge is that Pryor was eventually confirmed, and he was one of the very few recess nominated Judges in recent decades. An even greater distinction is that the Obama nominations were made when the Senate was NOT in recess, but was holding pro forma sessions to prevent recess nominations - a practice Democrats began during the Bush Administration. The DC Circuit decision can be upheld without endangering any other President's nominees.

2635: Okay, so doubt is... uncertainty, which in turn is a threat to, and induces pain in, the self. I think it's Gandhi's use of 'find', in 'find your doubts', that's throwing me. Find the nature of your doubts? Discover them for what they are? Locate them in the talisman Gandhi offers, which is very much a test? Or, trade your doubts for Gandhi's focused question [i.e. "find your doubts", and thereby measure the action you are contemplating {is it the "correct course of action"?)], and, as focused as that is outside the self, and on the Other, "your self [will] melt away".

I think he means, "you will find that your doubts melt away. And you will also find your self melt away".

Trying to parse individual words from a non-native speaker is largely pointless. I mean would any native English speaker use the word talisman in that way? Was the quote originally even given in English? Because if it's a translation, then forget about it. Idioms and figures of speech don't cross language barriers well.

One of the terminal reports rated him as "good at English, fair in Arithmetic and weak in Geography; conduct very good, bad handwriting." He passed the matriculation exam at Samaldas College in Bhavnagar, Gujarat, with some difficulty. Gandhi's family wanted him to be a barrister, as it would increase the prospects of succeeding to his father's post.

In 1888, Gandhi traveled to London, England, to study law at University College London, where he studied Indian law and jurisprudence and to train as a barrister at the Inner Temple.

He obviously was non-native, but I can't imagine his English wasn't pretty good by the time the above quote was spoken.

He obviously was non-native, but I can't imagine his English wasn't pretty good by the time the above quote was spoken.

Whether he was a good English speaker or not is irrelevant. If the quote was given in a different language and translated (without some adaptation), it would present the same problem.

I think he means, "you will find that your doubts melt away. And you will also find your self melt away".

Give that this is in context of "Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test", this is exactly what he means. Is it really that difficult to connect the last sentence of a seven sentence paragraph with the second sentence?

. I'd very dearly love to put "guy who goes around to people's houses and sorts their books for them" as a possible option. Though I'm not sure how much that would pay.

It would pay more if the books were blank.

http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/newsstand/discussion/jeff_pealman_blog_this_weeks_sicom_column

I was thinking this morning about Pudge Rodrizguez [sic]. A bunch of years ago I visited Pudge’s house in Miami. He was friendly and nice and sorta dull, but two things stand out: First, he had a ton of books in his library—stuff like biographies of FDR and Lincoln; profiles of great debates, etc. I picked up one of the books to read through it—and the pages were empty. One hundred percent empty. All the books. They were merely for show, brought in by some interior decorator. ...

5. Tim Marchman Posted: December 23, 2009 at 03:14 PM (#3420648)

I used to do interior design work with books and the funny thing about this story is that blank books are much more expensive than printed ones, which are sold by the foot and are sometimes sold by weight for just this purpose. After all any decent used bookshop will be filled with unread Father's Day type books whereas blank books in the dimensions of a hardback book are quite rare. Actually if Pudge has a library full he probably took a decent chunk out of our national reserves of such books.

By the way, if you're wondering there is very little more soul crushing than dealing with rich people who want to buy thousands of dollars worth of books chosen strictly by color and volume.

What makes this case different from the recess nominated judge is that Pryor was eventually confirmed, and he was one of the very few recess nominated Judges in recent decades.

Eventual confirmation wouldn't validate the rulings he made while a recess appointee. The problem with the DC Cirtuit ruling is that it invalidates all of the actions of the NLRB taken while operating with a recess appointee (it's a bit broader than otherwise for technical reasons I'll omit for simplicity). By that logic, if Pryor was in the majority on any 2-1 panel decisions, those cases would need to be reversed and re-heard.

An even greater distinction is that the Obama nominations were made when the Senate was NOT in recess, but was holding pro forma sessions to prevent recess nominations - a practice Democrats began during the Bush Administration.

I think it's possible for the SCOTUS to define "recess" more broadly than the DC Circuit, and therefore cover Pryor, but narrowly enough to invalidate the NLRB appointment. The decision as it stands, though, combines both an extreme definition of "recess" and the retroactive invalidation. That combination is hard to defend.

Didn't see the Anonymous attack on the Justice Department and leak threats linked.

Two weeks ago today, a line was crossed. Two weeks ago today, Aaron Swartz was killed. Killed because he faced an impossible choice. Killed because he was forced into playing a game he could not win — a twisted and distorted perversion of justice — a game where the only winning move was not to play.

...

Through this websites and various others that will remain unnamed, we have been conducting our own infiltration. We did not restrict ourselves like the FBI to one high-profile compromise. We are far more ambitious, and far more capable. Over the last two weeks we have wound down this operation, removed all traces of leakware from the compromised systems, and taken down the injection apparatus used to detect and exploit vulnerable machines.

We have enough fissile material for multiple warheads. Today we are launching the first of these. Operation Last Resort has begun…

...

The contents are various and we won’t ruin the speculation by revealing them. Suffice it to say, everyone has secrets, and some things are not meant to be public. At a regular interval commencing today, we will choose one media outlet and supply them with heavily redacted partial contents of the file. Any media outlets wishing to be eligible for this program must include within their reporting a means of secure communications.

...

We make this statement do not expect to be negotiated with; we do not desire to be negotiated with. We understand that due to the actions we take we exclude ourselves from the system within which solutions are found. There are others who serve that purpose, people far more respectable than us, people whose voices emerge from the light, and not the shadows. These voices are already making clear the reforms that have been necessary for some time, and are outright required now.

It is these people that the justice system, the government, and law enforcement must engage with. Their voices are already ringing strong with a chorus of determined resolution. We demand only that this chorus is not ignored. We demand the government does not make the mistake of hoping that time will dampen its ringing, that they can ride out this wave of determination, that business as usual can continue after a sufficient period of lip-service and back-patting.

Not this time. This time there will be change, or there will be chaos…

-Anonymous

The recognition that those working in justice who do "believe in those principles that it has lost, corrupted, or abandoned ... do not bear the full responsibility for the damages caused by their occupation" was a thoughtful touch.

That's nice, but can someone please translate that jargon-loaded missive into plain English? Who's threatening to do exactly what to whom, and towards what ultimate end? That's not a snark, it just reflects honest confusion.

Andy,

If you Google "Operation Last Resort" there are articles up that explain the basics. Apparentlty the USSC site had to shut down for awhile. I am sure there are many guys here at BTF who can explain it very well.

I think it's possible for the SCOTUS to define "recess" more broadly than the DC Circuit, and therefore cover Pryor, but narrowly enough to invalidate the NLRB appointment

That's the most likely outcome, IMHO. I don't think the part of the DC Circuit opinion indicating that the vacancy has to occur during the end-of-session recess will be upheld, but the Supreme court might not reach that issue or the restriction on recess appointments to the end-of-session recess. They can easily find that the Senate was not in recess without addressing the other issues.

I'm a little surprised for the support here for Obama's expanded definition of "recess". Such a construction allows a President to place in office an unconfirmable individual or even a series of unconfirmable nominees despite the Senate's best efforts to block them. Not exactly what the Founders envisioned. I suspect some would be reacting differently if George W. Bush had made such appointments when Harry Reid was keeping the Senate in pro forma sessions.

Coconut Grove redux

2646. Jolly Old St. Nick Done Jumped The Ship Posted: January 27, 2013 at 06:02 PM (#4356136)
That's nice, but can someone please translate that jargon-loaded missive into plain English? Who's threatening to do exactly what to whom, and towards what ultimate end? That's not a snark, it just reflects honest confusion.

Basically, Anonymous decided to pull another wikileaks, but it sounds like they actually hacked a government site instead of relying on an Army Private to walk out with a CD-Rom.